Gold halted its three-day rally due to investors booking profits ahead of the crucial US Nonfarm Payrolls report. The rise of US Treasury bond yields also made holding the non-yielding metal less appealing. At the time of writing, the XAU/USD trades at $2,918, virtually unchanged.
The yellow metal consolidated above the $2,900 figure, capped by the earlier rise of the US 10-year Treasury bond yield to a one-week high, before paring those gains to stand at 4.286%.
Uncertainty surrounds the financial markets, spurred by controversial trade policies proposed by the President of the United States (US), Donald Trump. Tariffs imposed on US allies and adversaries triggered retaliation by Canada and China. Meanwhile, Mexico got a one-month delay of tariffs until April 2, after Trump and Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum discussed additional improvements in fentanyl and illegal migration.
Data in the US was mixed on Thursday. The Challenger jobs report showed that layoffs rose sharply to levels not seen since the last two recessions. Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dipped beneath projections, tempering recession fears sparked by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas data.
Following the data, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Model projects the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Q1 2025 at -2.4%, up from the -2.8% contraction estimated on Wednesday.
Gold price consolidates amid mixed US data
US real yields, as measured by the US 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) yield, which correlates inversely to Gold prices, are flat at 1.946%, a headwind for XAU/USD prices.
US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending March 1 rose to 221K but remained below the 235K forecast and the previous week's 242K.
Challenger Job Cuts in February surged from 49.8K to 172K, largely due to DOGE-related actions. Data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas revealed that the federal government was responsible for 62,242 of these layoffs.
Money market traders had priced in 74 basis points of easing in 2025, up from 72 bps on Wednesday, via data from the Prime Market Terminal.
Source: Fxstreet
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